


in sunrise, we fade

by zarahjoyce



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Jon is a Targaryen, Loosely inspired by 'The Notebook', Modern Setting, idek, rich boi, then veers way off course, what if, with soft hands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-05-16 23:11:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19328023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarahjoyce/pseuds/zarahjoyce
Summary: "Sorry. I'm not... I don't think I'm over the shock of it yet.""Shock of what?""Seeing you again." He looks up from his mug of coffee and gives her thislook, the one that can basically make her go weak at the knees - back in the olden days.Back when she was still deeply, madly,stupidlyin love with him.She takes a sip of her own tea and shrugs. "I guess it's a natural reaction. We haven't seen each other in what, five to six months?""Three years, Sansa." His brows furrow as he corrects her. "It's been three years."-(a late entry for Jonsa: A Dream of Spring Day 5  au day: movies)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheOriginalSuki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOriginalSuki/gifts).



_Time asks no questions,_  
_It goes on without you_  
_Leaving you behind i_ _f you can't stand the pace_

                                   - Des'ree, You Gotta Be

-

"You look well," he prefaces, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiles at her.

For a moment, she thinks about refuting him, that _actually_ she's already gained seven fucking pounds and has some bouts of sleeplessness at the worst possible moments - yet she chooses to grin at him, saying, "Thank you. I'm trying to eat healthier, you see."

_Bullshit._

"Ah," he replies, nodding. "So that's why you're-- you seem to be--"

 _"Well?"_ she teases him. "That's what you're going to tell me again, isn't it?"

He laughs, and it's such a wonderful sound. "Sorry. I'm not... I don't think I'm over the shock of it yet."

"Shock of what?"

"Seeing you again." He looks up from his mug of coffee and gives her this _look_ , the one that can basically make her go weak at the knees - back in the olden days.

Back when she was still deeply, madly, _stupidly_ in love with him.

She inhales sharply; fuck it, but _that face_ apparently _still_ has some power over her, and it's annoying because she had thought-- she had _hoped_ \--

She takes a sip of her own tea and shrugs. "I guess it's a natural reaction. We haven't seen each other in what, five to six months?"

"Three years, Sansa." His brows furrow as he corrects her. "It's been three years."

 _Of_   _fucking course_ she knows that, too - and a part of her feels proud that he, like her, had kept count of the length of their absence from each other's lives.

"God, has it really been that long?" she asks, only half joking.

He turns his coffee mug this way and that, seemingly entranced with how the liquid inside it is sloshing. Then softly he asks, "Where were you?"

"Oh, just here and there." Except she'd sailed halfway across the world in the hopes that she can start afresh, start a new life, find herself, who she really is, what she can really  _do_ \--

Now she's back in the place where it all began, basically telling everyone who cared enough to listen that she _made_ it. 

That a lowly Stark _could_.

Oh, if only Jon's family can see her _now_.

"See, I have a hard time believing that," he tells her, straightening in his seat and crossing his arms. "Because I would have found you if you'd been just 'here and there'."

Airily she replies, "Not that you spent a lot of time looking, did you?"

She tries _so hard_ to let it slip like it means nothing, like it's just a casual observation - but still there's a sting in her chest at the reminder and just.

Fuck _him_.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" he demands.

Her eyes drop from his to the engagement ring _so_ prominently displayed on his finger. "I hear she's a very lovely woman, Jon. Congratulations."

So lovely that she feels her first instinct, if and when she encounters the woman on the street, is to give her a hug - then wrap a plastic 'round her neck and pull really, really hard.

But he doesn't have to know _that_.

He exhales loudly but doesn't tell her anything more - though he _did_ have enough sense to hide his hands from her sight.

So she prods him, "I thought you didn't want to go through with your arranged marriage?"

 _I love you. I'm not gonna marry her; no one can make me._ _I love_ you.

_Run away with me, then._

_Yes. I-- yes._

"I didn't," he replies, sighing. "I still don't."

_Liar._

"Let me guess. You met her, saw how beautiful she is, realized that you were basically being an ass for refusing her in the first place--"

"That's _not_ what happened at all." He rubs at his face, pulling hard on the corners of his mouth before meeting her eyes again. "Fuck, Sansa. Are we _really_ going to do this?"

She shrugs. "Not really. I mean we don't _have_ to. I was just curious, that's all. I mean, she must be so _wonderful_ that you thought of buying the house _we_ dreamed of together, back then, as a wedding gift to her. It's so romantic I could _die_."

"Sansa," he says, his tone a warning.

But she never really _is_ one to get dissuaded with mere words - so she sneers at him, all pride and lips and teeth. "Are you surprised, Jon? That I bought it already? That a mere _Stark_  could buy it from under a Targaryen's nose?" She takes a deep breath and tells him, point-blank, "It's not for sale, by the way. I'm sorry you wasted your time coming here, but I have no plans of selling it - to anyone, especially not to _you_." She rises to her feet. "Now if you'll just follow me--"

But just as she turns away, he grabs her arm and demands, "Where are you going?"

"Showing you the door," she replies, trying to dislodge his hold on her. "So you can get the fuck out."

"Why?" he asks. "Afraid _I'll_ start asking my own questions?"

She tugs hard, freeing herself in the process. "You already did. You asked me where I've been. There really isn't anything else to--"

"I thought you were fucking _dead_ , Sansa!"

For several seconds, neither one of them speaks.

Then he pushes himself off his seat, running his hand through his hair before turning towards her and saying, "You just disappeared one day. Have you forgotten that? One day you were just fucking _gone_. Of course I tried finding you. I had others tracking you. But I couldn't find you - _no one_ could - and in the end I was told that maybe you--" He takes a deep breath and ends it shakily with, "--maybe you're already dead."

She stares at him then, her mouth opening and closing but not forming any coherent word to say to him except, "W-What?"

"I _mourned_ you," he tells her, coming to stop and stand just before her. His eyes are wild as he adds, "Every fucking day, for two and a half years. I thought about killing myself every day, did you know that? I thought about ending _everything_ just so I can be with you. You're the only one I've ever wanted; how am I supposed to go on knowing that you're not--"

He reaches for her, drags his thumb from her cheek down the side of her mouth - and she winces at his touch. Not because she despised it, but because she-- _god,_ she-- 

"And now that I have my life back together, now that I'm almost _whole_ again, you come back, more beautiful than ever and I--" 

She pushes his hand off her face and spins away from him. No, _no._ This isn't real. He's just confusing her, making it as though it's her fault all along when he--

When _he_ was the one who--

" _You_  were the one who abandoned _me,_ Jon!" she snarls, unable to keep the truth to herself any longer. "Don't you fucking dare try to deny it!"

"Sansa--"

"I offered that we run away together; it seems _you're_ the one who forgot." She steps towards him, jabbing a finger at his chest, over and _over_. "We talked about it. We planned for it. And then at the very day we were supposed to leave, you didn't come. I waited and waited and _you didn't come!_ "

She glares at him then, for she remembers that fateful moment clearly:

How hard she'd tried to look for him from among the sea of passengers coming in to board the ship. How she'd begged the captain to wait for a _few minutes more, please, please,_ in the hopes that he would arrive to _be_ with her, that they could live happily _away_ from people who wanted them apart--

Yet in the end, she traveled _alone_.

And now--

"We planned, yes," he says, studying her intently. "But we never-- we haven't decided on _any_ date. What are you talking about?"

His words make her feel like she's been slapped in the face.

No.

_No._

This can _not_ be happening.

"I wrote you a letter," she tells him, a part of her beginning to understand everything - and rejecting it every step of the way. "Every day for a _month_ , Jon. You told me we can't see each other because your family forbade it; that's why I wrote to you instead. The-- the details were there, and you didn't reply to any of them but still I'd hoped that you--"

"There were no letters!" he snaps, stepping closer to her again and grabbing her wrist. "I didn't get _any_ letter from you!"

She takes a deep breath, exhales it in a rush. "That's--"

"If I _had_ , I would've come to you." He lets go of her wrist to cradle her face, his thumbs caressing her lower lip. "If I had known what you were planning, _nothing_ could have kept me from going to you. Even my family." For a moment, he winces. " _Especially_ them. You should have realized that!"

"Jon," she breathes, looking into his eyes, wanting to flee from his touch and yet--

_\--and yet._

"You left on your own, then?" he asks. " _That's_ why you were gone for three years?"

"Yes," she whispers. "You were supposed to meet me at the port. We were supposed to leave _together_."

Oh.

Oh, _god_.

Is it true, then? The past three years, when she hated and hated and hated _him_ \- can it all be reduced to a mere _misunderstanding?_

"I didn't know," he tells her, almost desperate now. "I'm sorry. I _didn't_ know."

 _Three years,_ she thinks.

All those time wasted.

All those time she--

"You've moved on," she whispers - an _accusation -_  as she reaches for his wrists, intending to pull them away - and yet, she _doesn't._

"No. _Fuck_ , no. I--"

He then pulls her to him, his head coming to rest on her shoulder, and she feels him breathe her in and _tremble_. "You're the only one I've _ever_ wanted, Sansa. Please believe me. I can't-- I'm not--"

She keeps her hands at her sides, fighting with everything in her _not_ to embrace him in return. "You're getting married," she reminds him, each word a wound to her own chest, because _how dare he_ find another when she'd been alone, all this fucking time--

"You have no reason to be here any longer _,_ Jon," she adds with finality; in response, she feels him stiffen. "You need to leave _."_

"For now," he agrees - but only after a bit of time has passed. Slowly pulling away from her he says, "I'll leave, for now. But I'll return. I can't-- I can't _not_ see you again. _Please_. I need-- I need you."

She doesn't say anything, merely turns away as he all but drags himself out the door.

Only when she hears his car drive off does she allow herself to sink to the floor.

She hasn't planned for this. She hasn't anticipated that he will return to her life so soon after coming back here, that all her reasons to hate him will be-- 

_\--fuck._

What?

Now, what?


	2. Chapter 2

Jon's life, he thinks, has never been truly his - not in the truest sense, anyway.   
  
This is what it means to be a  _Targaryen,_ he's often told.  
  
All his activities are planned in advance - what school he will go to, which friends he'll hang out with, which woman he'll end up marrying. It's useless to fight it - and gods know he's fucking  _tried_ \- so in the end he just accepted what will happen to him, with the wretched sort of feeling already deeply entrenched in his bones.  
  
Then he meets Sansa Stark.    
  
And suddenly accepting things as they are just doesn't  _work_ anymore.

* * *

  
One day she'd pointed at an old, idyllic Victorian house off the side of the road and told him wistfully, "That's it. That's the house I wanted to buy. I just... needed to save enough for it, that's all."  
  
_That's all._ Brave words for low-born Sansa  _Stark_.  
  
Yet they never talked about money - specifically, her lack of it.  
  
Jon followed her gaze, found the house she said she dreamed of. It looked about half the size of his own home, he thought. Nothing out of the ordinary. Out loud he said, "It seems... nice."  
  
She gave him a  _look_ and laughed. "It's only the embodiment of all my hopes and aspirations in life, but I'm glad you think it's  _nice_."  
  
Jon reached for her hand and said quietly, "You know what I mean." He was never good with words, after all.  
  
"It's not your fault you were born so privileged and-- well,  _Targaryen_?"  
  
Yet he didn't want to be - not around her.  
  
Jon pulled her aside, began nuzzling her neck the way she liked it. "Tell me why you want the house," he asked from her instead.  
  
She hummed contentedly. "It's so  _big_." She let her hands wander down, dipping below to reach his skin - making him hiss. "It's got so many rooms. It's got privacy,  _gods_. I can come in anytime I want and no one will be looking, no one will be  _asking_  about where I've--"  
  
Sansa never got to finish her thoughts.

* * *

  
It's perhaps why he'd sought to buy the house himself, years after he'd presumed her dead - even if the woman who would be living in it would  _not_ be her.  
  
It would have been a reminder of all the things he'd experienced, while caught up in the whirlwind that was  _Sansa Stark_.  
  
It would remind him that once, in his godforsaken life, he had been  _happy_.   
  
He'd been advised that the owner was home, and that he should speak to her directly if he wanted buy her property. Jon went there, and he had been prepared to offer her all he could, if it meant having that house.   
  
_It's only the embodiment of all my hopes and aspirations in life._  
  
But then the door opened, and out stepped  _Sansa Stark_  of all peopleand--

* * *

  
_You're getting married._  
  
You have no reason to be here any longer, Jon.  
  
_You need to leave._

* * *

  
It's early the next day when he drives by her house again.  
  
Jon hasn't even stepped out of his car when she goes out the front door, hair tied in a messy braid tumbling down her back. She doesn't look like she's just awaken; knowing her, she's probably been awake for  _hours_ now.  
  
She'd  _never_ looked more beautiful, he thinks, drinking the sight of her in. "Hi," he says, placing his hands in his pockets and smiling at her.  
  
"Jon? What are you--?"  
  
"I--"  
  
He spots a couple on unchopped logs at the side of her house, points at them and tells her, "I noticed that you may need some help with those to warm your house, so. Here I am. Volunteering."  
  
Sansa raises a brow at him. " _You?_  Offering to chop wood for me?"   
  
"You don't have to sound so surprised about it," he says, grinning now. "I mean it's not hard, is it? You just take the ax, swing it up your head and--" Jon mimes bringing the blade down. He shrugs. "Easy."  
  
She glances at the pile of woods and says, "All right, Mr. Targaryen. Show me what you've got." There's a smile worming its way to her face that he would love to fully pull out - if only she'll give him the chance.  
  
He's probably surprised her enough that she isn't making him leave.  _Good_. Taking it as an encouragement, he steps closer to the pile, takes a particularly  _thick_ piece of wood, positions it on top of the chopping block, takes the ax, makes sure she's looking at him, swings--  
  
\--and misses.  
  
_Spectacularly_.  
  
Sansa doubles over with laughter, clutching at her stomach as she does.  
  
Jon feels his face flush with embarrassment - yet he also feels incredibly  _pleased_ hearing her laugh, after so long. "Wait, wait," he says. "Okay, so that was  _bad_ for my first swing. But I promise, the second will be better."  
  
She wipes tears from her left eye. "I highly doubt it, but go on."  
  
He pats the wood for good luck, brings the ax up over his head, and strikes down, hard and true.  
  
This time, he doesn't miss.   
  
And manages to shave off about an  _eighth_ of the wood off of it.  
  
"Right," Jon says, disheartened as he stares at his own work. "So obviously, I just need a bit of practice here."  
  
" _Obviously_ ," Sansa says, still smiling. She picks up the speck of wood he's snipped off. "And you said it was  _easy_."  
  
"It  _looks_ easy," he defends himself - and cringes silently.   
  
"Mm-hmm."  
  
"I'm not giving up though," Jon tells her decisively. "I promised to chop wood for you - so I  _will_."  
  
"I hope I don't need to remind you that I have no need for  _toothpicks_ , Jon?" She shakes the piece of wood she's holding and raises her brows at him.  
  
"Minx," he teases her - making her laugh again.  
  
Sansa heads inside her house, and in her absence Jon takes his time trying to familiarize himself with fucking  _chopping wood._  When she comes back several minutes later, she's holding a pitcher of iced tea, then a plate of ham and bacon and eggs, whereas he's only managed to go through a  _fourth_ of the wooden pile - and that's describing things generously.  
  
She pulls off a towel slung over her shoulder and moves to pat the side of his head - only to change her mind at the last minute and offers the cloth to him instead. He doesn't even realize he's sweating until he wipes it off him; soon he's handing the towel back to her, only she's grasping his hand and looking intently at his palm.  
  
And only then does he realize he's  _bleeding_.   
  
"Oh, Jon," she breathes, sounding-- disappointed?  
  
"It doesn't hurt," he tells her quickly - and to his credit, it isn't  _all_ a lie.   
  
"You and your soft Targaryen hands," Sansa says, gripping his wrist instead and pulling him with her towards the house. Once inside, she pushes him on one of the chairs and tells him, "Now sit. Let me clean that up for you."  
  
"Sansa,  _no_ ," he says, shifting in his seat and watching her disappear into a room. "You don't have to do it," he adds, when she reappears.   
  
"Nor you," she responds quietly, gesturing at the side of her house. "Yet you did anyway."   
  
Sansa begins cleaning the tiny cuts along his palm, applying ointment and blowing on his skin when she's noticed him wincing.  
  
"Better?" she asks, meeting his eyes.  
  
The urge to kiss her then becomes overwhelming. He stares at her mouth, traces the edges of it with his thumb.  
  
"No," he replies softly.  
  
She pulls away from him then, making him regret that he'd responded to her question  _that_ way.  
  
Yet he truly can't help it. There's a wide chasm of unspoken things between them - and he wants to bridge it, however he can.  
  
"I'm sorry," Jon tells her. "For everything. For all that I've missed. For--"  
  
_\--believing you were dead._  
  
_For asking someone else to marry me._  
  
Sansa sighs. Recapping the ointment she's used on him she asks, "What do you want me to say, Jon? I  _can't_ tell you it's okay. In time maybe I can, but for now--"  
  
"Run away with me."  
  
Her eyes widen, clearly taken aback by his sudden offer. "Jon--"  
  
He cups her cheek with his hand. "I made the mistake of letting you go, once. I won't make that mistake again." He pauses. "Please don't make me."  
  
She wets her lip, and his eyes trail the movement hungrily. After a long moment Sansa replies, "I'll-- I'll have to think about it. I won't decide today. Please, just-- give me time."  
  
Jon nods, a mix of restlessness and some disappointment making his head spin.  
  
She didn't say  _yes_.  
  
But she didn't say  _no_ , either.

For now, it's enough.


End file.
